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Introduction Introduction ITALY IN THE SIXTH CENTURY Sometime after 540, the former Roman magistrate Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cas- siodorus Senator, or Cassiodorus, completed the collection of letters known as the Variae. He did so in the midst of the tumultuous conflict between the ruling Goths of Italy and the forces of the eastern Roman emperor, Justinian. This conflict, the Gothic War, would last eighteen years (536–54) and was the impetus for Cassio- dorus’s publication of an epistolary profile of his previous service under the Gothic Amal rulers. Probably less clear to Cassiodorus at the time was the fact that, like the Gothic War itself, the record of public service embedded in the Variae was a testimonial to a final stage in the unraveling of a tradition for imperial power in the former provinces of the western Roman Empire, making the Variae a palimps- est of momentous events, both of its own time and also of the extended history of the end of the western Roman Empire. The end of the western Roman Empire and the emergence of “successor states” (Vandalic North Africa, Visigothic Spain and Gaul, Frankish and Burgundian Gaul, and Ostrogothic Italy itself) was a complex and protracted process that occurred for different reasons on a region-by-region basis over the course of the fifth century, but it is a process that had direct bearing on Italy’s political position in Cassiodorus’s lifetime. By the sixth century, the western Mediterranean was no longer organized by a single, coherent state apparatus. Political and economic Portions of this introduction have been adapted from Shane Bjornlie, “The Letter Collection of Cassi- odorus,” in A Critical Introduction and Reference Guide to Late Antique Letter Collections, ed. Cristiana Sogno, Bradley K. Storin, and Edward J. Watts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016), 433–48. 1 Bjornlie_The Veriae.indd 1 10/07/19 7:52 PM 2 Introduction structures had become regionalized and reoriented around nonprofessional mili- tary elites. Being Roman, too, had transformed in meaning and had yielded to more regional, and more relevant, kinds of identities. By contrast, imperial power in the eastern Mediterranean had become even more focused on Constantinople as a “new Rome.” Although the fifth century had also imposed profound changes upon the political culture and social structures of the eastern Mediterranean, the eastern Roman Empire nonetheless preserved the administrative, fiscal, and cul- tural instruments of imperial power to a degree not seen in former western prov- inces in the sixth century. Thus, by Cassiodorus’s lifetime, the western “successor states” and the eastern Roman Empire represented increasingly divergent histori- cal trajectories. Nonetheless, the interconnectedness of the eastern and western Mediterranean should never be dismissed. The constant movement of ecclesiasti- cal envoys, royal and imperial delegations, merchants and tradesmen, armies and migrant peoples, and even private entrepreneurs, ensured that political, religious, and cultural communication persisted between the western and eastern Mediter- ranean throughout the sixth century. The position of Italy in this new matrix of what had been a centralized Roman provincial system was perhaps unique, in that it had become a frontier between the evolving “successor states,” on the one hand, and the eastern Roman Empire, on the other. For centuries, Italy had served as the center stage of a vast empire and as a reservoir for imperial wealth and political talent. But by the beginning of the sixth century, Italy’s control over western provinces had contracted considerably to include primarily the Italian peninsula and its Alpine hinterland, Sicily and the Dalmatian coastal zone. The consequent reduction in economic resources that attended the loss of a provincial system necessitated that the scale of imperial administration in Italy was proportionately, and substantially, reduced. These changes, however, were neither abrupt, nor even conclusively disruptive. The process of paring provinces away from Italy’s control occurred mostly in the first three decades of the fifth century. By the time the Goths arrived under Theoderic in 489, Italy already had over half a century to accommodate itself to very different circumstances. New economic hinterlands and new channels of political patron- age developed for the political elite, a process of regionalization that transformed Italy into a self-contained polity that was no longer dependent on provincial resources. Similarly during the fifth century, the detachment of the emperor’s role as the ceremonial figure of state from the exercise of military power, visible par- ticularly during the reigns of Honorius (393–423) and Valentinian III (425–55), had paved the way for the period of arriviste warlords in Italy that culminated in the reign of Odoacer as king of Italy (476–89). It was largely during the period follow- ing the death of Valentinian III that real governing power resided with a military class settled in northern Italy and ruling from Ravenna, while the traditional sena- torial elite of Rome assumed a more or less ancillary role in the political culture of Bjornlie_The Veriae.indd 2 10/07/19 7:52 PM Introduction 3 Italy. Thus, when Theoderic arrived during the generation of Cassiodorus’s father, the political, administrative, and economic patterns of governance over which he assumed control had already been set. Theoderic’s primary innovation was to graft the army that had followed him from the Balkans (collectively known today as the “Ostrogoths”) onto the military hierarchy of Italy’s existing government. Thus, the Italy reflected in Cassiodorus’sVariae was liminal, both geographically and temporally. The nearly continuous (and always competitive) political dialogue that Italy had exchanged with the eastern empire since the early fifth century con- tributed to the maintenance of a political language that was the direct legacy of Roman Empire. In this sense, Italy maintained the pretensions of an imperial state to a degree far greater than other western regions. The ancient density of Italy’s urban centers also contributed to a relatively complex late-antique administration. This maintenance of ancient tradition, so pronounced in the Variae, became the hallmark of the Amals, the Gothic ruling family, first under Theoderic, and then with his successors, Amalasuntha and Athalaric. At the same time, many of the realities imposed upon other regions of the postimperial West are visible in Cassi- odorus’s lifetime: diplomatic communication between royal courts that reveals the insecurity of political partnerships, new ideologies based on Romans as “civilians” and a culturally distinctive (and nonprofessional) military class, contracted eco- nomic and administrative horizons, and the increased importance of royal over- sight to compensate for the increasingly inadequate reach of a professionalized administration. For a region that is both an inheritance from Roman Empire and a legacy of its demise, Italy in the sixth century is notoriously difficult for modern historians to characterize. On the one hand, so many markers point to continuity with the pre- vious imperial culture of Roman Italy—the maintenance of fiscal habits, relatively robust attention to urban fabric, and the appointment of traditional political offices such as consuls and praetorian prefects. On the other hand, capturing the essence of Italy in the sixth century requires carefully assessing the scope and char- acter of what are often regarded as “imperial” features. For example, while there is ample testimony to tax collection, the evidence usually appears in response to the difficulty of sustaining regular collection with a reduced administration. Similarly, while it is clear that urban centers remained the focal point for economic and administrative activity in the sixth century, it is also clear that the city’s role as a theater for these activities relied, in part, on the central administration, but also increasingly on the local church as civic benefactor. And where appointments to political office are amply attested, so too is reliance of the government on new roles, such as Gothic saiones (special agents of the royal court), to fulfill traditional administrative needs. Even the baroque style of a text like the Variae can be inter- preted with completely different frames of reference—either in terms of stylistic continuity with a classical intellectual and governmental tradition, on the one Bjornlie_The Veriae.indd 3 10/07/19 7:52 PM 4 Introduction hand, or in terms of rhetorical pretension in the face of insistent cultural change, on the other. Compounding the difficulty of understanding sixth-century Italy is the nature of the sources. Although fairly abundant, textual sources describing Ostrogothic Italy can often be frustratingly myopic. Where sources for sixth-century Italy are rich, they can nonetheless sound like a chorus of half-utterances. The Variae, by contrast, provide perhaps the most holistic view of the region. As a collection of letters representing the concerns and activities of a late-antique administration, the Variae provide sometimes opaque, sometimes vivid perspectives of a startling range of life in the sixth century (diplomatic letters, administrative directives, the resolution of legal disputes, sentences for crimes against individuals and the state, military mobilization, attention to building projects, and appointments to mili- tary, administrative, and even honorary
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